


Certain Twilights

by GStK



Series: You, Who Read Me [2]
Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 00:32:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4939813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remember you are not the first song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Certain Twilights

**Author's Note:**

> Second-person POV. Abstract. Vague spoilers. Implied violence.  
> Light tense switching as well.

****Time set in motion everything you wish it couldn’t.

There’s sunsets and whirlwinds and birthday parties, because Shuuya isn’t six any more, but nine, ten, eleven and thirteen. Your sister wears her hair long, now, pinning it back with bobby pins and hair ties she picked out herself. Strange men in coats that aren’t white come to your house, talk in whispers behind doors that never used to lock, and your father is nowhere to be seen. High school is minutes around the corner, but then ― Kousuke's goldfish dies.

From the moment when summer keeps the sun captive well into the night, you’re there. The stained glass at the front door stops being blue, yellow, but only just red. The glass is red, and you are there.

You sob in your dreams but come morning, you’re voiceless.

Life goes on. You do not.

* * *

Neither does he.

A plate you reach for shatters and you think of rock slides. Home is a blur and so is school life: there are tests, people, red ink that crosses more out than it circles, but these are just facts, not things you remember. There will be one moment you fuss with the sleeves on your uniform, and your friends will laugh, point at your scarf, and it will be September. You will look up in the next and your sleeves will be shorter, and your classmates will laugh, but it will be May.

And he will be there just the same.

* * *

_He turns a page in his book, and the motion exposes the pale of his wrist beneath his jacket. One moment was 3, and now it’s 5, and you don’t know how long it is you stare at his hand. His eyes flick to you when you think he might be beautiful; you tense up, and you know what he will say:_ Even you could read this. _Everything bores him and nothing is worth it._

 _He surprises you when his lips move and you hear a_ what _instead. Just that._

 _You hear someone say_ nothing _and it must be you because he looks not to the door, but away._

 _Relief fills you like an empty pool. You are so tired of change_.

* * *

Time sets in motion everything you don’t want. You set in motion everything you regret.

You inflict yourself on people in ways they cannot understand. You smile and tell them it’s because you’re friends; you listen and tell them it’s because you care; you feel – the rush of anxiety in your chest when there’s problems, any problem, and your mind screams at you to _fix it_ – and tell them you’d do anything to help. You let them call you a good person, and you tell yourself you’re needed, even when you’re not.

Your arms are red, sometimes, when you grip them too hard. The marks fade, and you’re okay with that, maybe happier than you should be. He’s a little like that: everything sinks into him and nothing breaks the surface, and the shape of your friendship on his skin disappears, faster than you can paint it on again. He returns your _hello_ s with silence and stares at you the same way he stares at everybody.

There’s a lasting chill when his eyes rake over you. It hurts. It stings. That doesn’t change.

But it makes you think _tomorrow_ instead of only just _today_.

* * *

By the time she asks you, you already know you do.

You know you do, and that’s why you don’t say it. It’s the silence you learned from a father who never went to the cemetery with you, who disappeared when the red sun went down and never really came back. The lying is your gift from a brother who thinks people can only like him in pieces. You give her none of the truth and she presses, and a guilty part of you wishes she’d bite her tongue.

But when it comes to _after_ , you don’t lie. More selfish, less anxious, more ambitious, less **you**. You’re supposed to be selfless, aren’t you, and the thought will always make you smile tiredly; you are selfish, but not like he needs, and you need less of yourself to think about moving forward.

It’s what she wants. But not you.

She’s in love with the feeling and she chases it endlessly, her pigtails bouncing with every broken breath. She's in love with the feeling, and you don’t understand, because it’s nothing but static underneath your skin.

* * *

_He will smack your hand away when you reach for him. He will walk away, and he will leave you hurting, and that is when you will know. He will refuse to fall into your trap and he will ask you:_ what part of you isn’t guilty _?_

_You are so tired of asking. But you’re not used to being asked._

_You won’t have an answer. He will not push you._

_He will leave you crying alone in a classroom, and that is when you will love him._

* * *

_It’s a long fall from the rooftop._

_But you can’t even do that right, can you._

* * *

In the future, he comes for you in a red jacket. He smiles when you see him.

You cry when he does, but you say you’re happy

and that is your lie.

* * *

_In the past, he will scowl at you when you laugh. He will ask_ , what, _and he will brush aside your paper crane without a second thought_.

_Summer will keep the sun captive well into the night, and you will not be there._

_But you will be there in the moment, and you will say,_ nothing ―

_― and that will be your truth._

**Author's Note:**

> Prompts: time; importance; "the story of how you stayed in love."


End file.
